Child Protection

Children Priority Issues in the 2014 National Budget

Children are sometimes left out in crucial
decision-making processes on matters that affect them, for various reasons.
Child rights approaches to programming however dictate that children should be
consulted and be afforded the opportunity to participate in such matters that
affect them. The Child Friendly National Budget Initiative (CFNBI) programme is
thus meant to capacitate children with skills to actively participate in
budgeting processes at various levels of government as a way of ensuring that
their needs are adequately met through the budget, thus promoting children’s
rights.

In that regard, UNICEF partnered with the
Zimbabwe Youth Council (ZYC), NANGO and Save the Children with funding from
Barclays Bank Zimbabwe and held two workshops for the Junior MPs in the ZYC
Southern and Northern Regions respectively. These train-the-trainer CFNBI
workshops were meant to capacitate the Junior MPs on budget issues and how
children can contribute to the budget making process for inclusion of
children’s issues.

The Junior MPs have subsequently gone back
to their constituencies and trained other children on child friendly budgeting.
Importantly, they have also consulted with other children on issues that they
would want prioritized in the forthcoming 2014 national budget. Below is a
summary of issues that the children of Zimbabwe through the Junior
Parliamentarians would want the Minister of Finance to include in the 2014
National Budget.